Sacred Flame: His Enemy, His Mate (BL)-Chapter 68: Kael Draeven

Kael Draeven

What is life, really?

One moment, you have everything. The next, it’s gone, vanished in the blink of an eye.

You grow up with rules. Go to school. Get good grades. Listen to your teachers. Read. Write. Study until your brain aches. And somehow, you pass the exams because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Expectations.

Love.

None of it was freely given. Because success wasn’t earned easily in my house, but like every other house, you have that one reason to prove yourself, either to please someone. Might be yourself. Might be others.

But for me, that person was my mother.

She was my world.

I’d sat at the piano for hours, pressing keys with stiff fingers, trying to play something, anything, just because she loved music. Even though I never played anything good, I thought... Maybe if I tried hard enough, it would make her happy.

Even when my father barely came home, even when his mistress sent pictures of them together just to break her apart, she was still the center of mine.

She never said a word about those pictures. She’d stare at them, silent, fingers gripping the edges so hard they crumpled. And then, she’d take it all out on me.

She was a good mother once. At least, I think she was. Or maybe I convinced myself she was because it was easier than admitting the truth. She loved my father, even if it was twisted, even if it bled her dry. And when he kept breaking her, she started breaking too.

Throwing things. Screaming. Shattering plates and flower vases against the walls.

Sometimes, she locked me in a room. Sometimes, she hits me. Hard enough that I curled into myself, small and trembling, until she finally saw the blood, the bruises. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Then, she’d fall apart.

She’d gather me in her arms, rocking me, her tears soaking my skin as she begged for forgiveness. She’d whisper promises that she’d never do it again. But the cycle always repeated.

Until that night she got one of those pictures and messages again, that very night she put on that brown coat over her white dress and kissed my forehead with those cold lips I would never forget the feel of them.

"Stay here for me," she said. "Mommy has to go somewhere."

I didn’t think much of it then. I was too young. Too naïve. Maybe if I had been stronger, if I had held onto her, if I had let her break my fingers or slap me raw, maybe, just maybe, she would have stayed.

Maybe she wouldn’t have gone after them.

But she did.

And she never came back.

For the first time in my life, the man who was supposed to be my father came home without being forced by mom. He actually came, but not because he wanted to. Not because he cared. He came because she was gone.

I hated him.

I still do.

But he was the only one I have left. And maybe... maybe I was just a stupid, lonely kid who craved something, anything, that felt like love.

So when he told me to come with him, I followed.

I left the only home I ever knew behind.

And that marked the beginning of a new life.

A life I never asked for.

But craving attention is a dangerous thing. It makes you willing to do anything, even for someone you hate. Even for the man who broke my mother.

So for the following years, I did everything he asked. Obeyed him without question. Became exactly what he wanted.

Until I was ten.

That was the year he took me somewhere new. A place unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

There were children younger than me, fragile, crying, begging. None of them lasted. One by one, they disappeared. Some taken. Some killed. Some just... wasted away.

That’s when I understood.

He wasn’t just a cruel man. He was a monster. And he wanted to make me one too.

At ten years old, I was already lifting weights my body wasn’t built for. He called it training. If I failed, he whipped me. Again and again, until my back felt like it had been split open and prayed for death.

And one day, just like those painful ones, I failed to lift something no child should be able to, he made sure I suffered for it.

The whip came down again.

And again.

Avoiding my face, of course. He was careful like that, never leaving marks where they could be seen because he believes one day they’re going to be put into use, I never did understand what he meant by that until years later.

By the time he was done, I couldn’t even lift a finger. I just lay there on the cold, hard floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what the rest of my life would be like.

And then,

A shadow fell over me. I couldn’t help lifting my head, and there he was.

A boy, younger than me obviously, Maybe five. He has short silver hair. Ocean-blue eyes and he was so beautiful, the kind of beautiful that didn’t belong in a place like this. He didn’t say anything, just crouched down and offered me a bottle of water.

It was a small thing. A simple act of kindness.

But to me, it was everything.

Later, I learned he was new, one of Father’s latest recruits who lost both his parents like every other Omega father grabbed after plucking out their parents for one or two reasons best known to him.

I thought he’d be like the others. Thought he’d curl up in a corner, cry himself to sleep, break apart under the weight of this place.

But he didn’t. Although, he just sat there sometimes, staring into nothing. His eyes were distant. Empty. But there was something else, too, something I couldn’t name but seen clearly because it was so me.

He was sad.

I wanted to comfort him. But how could I, when I couldn’t even comfort myself?

And what if I got close to him and he found out who I was? What if he ends up hating me? What if he looked at me and saw only him? Father; the man who took both his parents.

So I kept my distance. Watched from the shadows, growing and fueling my own twisted feelings.

And as time passed, I realized something,

He wasn’t like the others.

He adapted. He trained. He’s strong, stronger than I’ll ever be.

And without meaning to, without realizing it, he became an existence I couldn’t do without, an existence I just couldn’t stop myself from watching,

Like a drug I was addicted to. Call it an obsession or anything you want, but what I know is I just can’t stop myself from watching him.

But beneath his calm exterior was this fire within him, bright and burning, so fierce I knew it was bound to bring him trouble.

And it did.

The day he defied Father by doing something as stupid as standing up for the others, I knew it was coming. I knew what Father would do.

But that didn’t make it any easier to watch as he was made to go on his knees in front of the others, the whip was raised by father and lashed at his back, one, two, three... It cracked against his skin, and he screamed. Loud. Raw. The kind of sound so excruciating it feeds something twisted, something deep inside my chest.

I wanted to stop it. Wanted to rip that whip from Father’s hand.

But I was weak.

Weakness was unforgivable.

Weakness meant I could do nothing but stand there, watching as he bled.

So I made a decision.

I would get stronger.

Stronger than before. Strong enough to take him away from this place.

Therefore, I threw myself into training. Harder. Longer. Until my body broke.

And Father noticed quickly.

At first, he only watched. Observing, calculating. He didn’t praise me, didn’t acknowledge my efforts, but he also didn’t stop me.

I pushed harder. Ignored the pain. Ignored the blood. Ignored the way my body screamed for rest.

And after sometimes,

He saw the shift in me and for the first time, he actually paid attention. Because I was becoming exactly what he wanted me to be.

A monster.

But I knew I wasn’t training to please him. I was training to survive. To become strong enough to carve my own path. To take him away from this hell before it destroyed him, too.

But Father wasn’t a fool. He saw the shift in me. Saw the way I kept my eyes on that silver-haired boy even when I thought no one was looking.

And he used it against me.

One day, he called me into his office. His expression was unreadable, his voice cold as he said to me, "You keep looking at him, Kael? Do you like him? Do you want to take him away?" he had clicked his tongue with a mocking laugh after that before saying, "An hopeless dream it is, but why not earn it? Do whatever I tell you and he’ll be yours."

And oh I do, I do like him so much I would do everything, and that’s how I came to an agreement with father to be his tool and he’ll give us freedom.

That continued for years until I turned twenty three, and by this time I had done all sort of dirty work anyone could do, kill, grab from others, destroy, all on the command of father, I was his son, and I’ve done well for the past years, earning myself a name in the underground world.

That was until I got my very last mission which would change everything including me, because of the target I was supposed to kill, a man who just woke up from a thirteen year coma, who happens to go by the name, Sebastian Locke.